When you think about bourbon and pop culture you need to really think hard. But it is more common than many know. JTS Brown is a bourbon produced by Heaven Hill Distillery in Kentucky, USA. It also happens to be the drink of choice for ‘Fast Eddie’ Felson, a character played by the late great Paul Newman in the films The Hustler, andThe Colour of Money—the movies both being adaptations of books by Walter Tevis. A classic scene from The Hustler, in which Eddie is taking on the legendary pool player “Minnesota Fats”, contains the following exchange:

Fats: Preach! Go down and get some White Tavern Whiskey, a glass, and some ice.

Eddie: Preacher! Go on down and get me some bourbon, no ice, no glass.

In Mad Men, the popular and award-winning TV series set in the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency on Madison Avenue in New York in the 1960s, is the epitome of this. This show’s brilliant deception of the art of drinking scotch is the ultimate in retro cool. The Roly Poly whiskey glasses with silver bands used in Mad men are originally by an American glass artist called Dorothy Thorpe, whose products were popular during the time period in which Mad Men is set. We then bring music into the scene, specifically with the song Whiskey in The Jar. By the time Metallica covered the song, it had already been recorded quite a few times. Although Metallica is an older band, Whiskey, specifically bourbon is becoming more prevalent with the younger generations, more commonly referred to as “millennials”. The most popular being Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey, Jim Bean Bourbon Whiskey, and Maker’s Mark Bourbon.